


The Education of Enjolras

by Caulfrey (CremeEgg)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College, Humor, M/M, Parody, SJW, Social Justice, Swearing, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CremeEgg/pseuds/Caulfrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is a Social Justice Warrior, who is failing his degree thanks to too much time on social media- and too little time studying. When Combeferre makes him an indecent proposal, Enjolras reacts <i>exactly</i> as you would expect him to.</p><p>Based on this <a href="http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/9761.html?page=32">prompt</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Education of Enjolras

There's a steady beeping just poking at his subconscious, and it's with the skilled instinct of one who has done this many times before that he flicks off the alarm clock that he purposefully left on the side of the desk to remind him of when class is. How can he concentrate on academia when there are wrongs in the world to be righted, internet denizens to be put straight, people to be dogpiled, asks to be answered, and virtual online love-fests to join? It's simply not right to expect him to hold down an online presence that is changing the world one sexist slur at a time, a fairly active social life  _and_  his damn classes as well. Something has got to give, and he is opting for his grade-average.  
  
  
After all  _loads_  of people have been successful without sucking the cock of the Man to get decent grades, he thinks and fist-pumps the air as he tells off someone for using the word crazy to self-describe.  _Just because you have a mental illness,_  he scolds,  _doesn't give you the right to use derogatory language, even if you claim it's to help yourself cope._  Filled with the joys of spring, he logs off, and squirms into his skinny jeans, wraps a scarf round his neck, picks up his bag and heads out the door, before he runs back to stick on a shirt. The outside world is such a harsh place, he thinks, and ponders the possibility of a demonstration outside the local city council hall in favour of mandatory nudity for the masses. However the coolness of the spring air outside makes him think that shirts have something in their favour, even if they are gendered tools of the patriarchy.   
  
  
The thing is, Enjolras likes Starbucks. Especially those minty frappucinos with the soy milk and the straws. But Starbucks is evil, he knows this. Starbucks crushes small coffee shops and the coffee itself tastes like ass sometimes. He compromises with his conscience by buying a frappucino, and leaving a pamphlet about preventing people from giving their animals embarrassing names in a homeless man's hat. He's really late by now, but with the caffeine flooding through his veins, he manages a small trot through the doors. The prof looks up and gives him a glare that should probably have frozen his face and made his eyelashes splinter off but Enjolras has the warmth of righteousness pumping through his veins though, and it bounces right off him, as he shuffles in, and makes a production of getting his laptop out, sighing loudly as he asked Combeferre to speak up a little bit, and correcting him every other sentence on the -ist things that tumble out of Combeferre's mouth.  
  
  
Eventually the professor snaps, and tells him that they're studying the implications of other historical events on the writing of certain passages of the New Testament, and it is literally not possible to refer to the lame man as being anything other than  _lame._  Duuuude, Enjrolas has rarely met bigots worse than this.  
  
  
"History is no excuse," Enjolras says, "we should like be better than the apes and shit. Except I bet even the apes didn't call people lame."  
  
  
"Saying shit demonises a perfectly reasonable and natural bodily function," the girl beside him says to Enjolras and he kinda wants to fucking cry.  
  
  
"Thanks for calling me out on my failing," he says, "I really appreciate it." This has made him a better person, he  _knows_  that, and the warmth of that makes him fucking glow inside. He doesn't bother listening to the professor's lecture after that, because it's not like he can learn anything, even if the prof strongly hints that this is going to come up on the exam, and it's with a great deal of reluctance that he stays behind after the class in order to listen to what is sure to be more blathering about how his grades are at rock bottom and he like actually has to  _write_  essays if he wants to be graded, and that his tuition fees are going to waste and all the other boring things he's heard fifty times before. He just doesn't get how some people don't understand that saving the world is important. Some day future generations are going to totally thank him for all the stuff he's done.

 

Then something switches on and he realises what Combeferre is saying.  
  
  
"You just need a firm hand don't you?" it's said in a lower voice, and Enjolras sort of thinks that Combeferre might be trying to be  _sexy_  and the thought makes him roll his eyes. Old people can't be sexy, and Combeferre has to be  _at least_  over thirty. Then he scolds himself for his internalised ageism, then forgives himself because Judy Dench kind of gives him funny feelings in his pants as M in Bond, and he once had that really weird sex dream where Alan Rickman was fingering him so he like can't be ageist or anything. In the midst of his self-flagellation, he's kind of lost track of what Combeferre is saying though, and zoned out which seems to have given Combeferre renewed confidence.  
  
  
"Huh?" he says.  
  
  
"You're such a mouthy little brat you know. Always speaking up about this and that, never paying attention, always late, no essays. I think you need someone to tell you what to do."  
  
  
What. The. Fuck. Is. This? Enjolras thinks, complete with the mental capslock on.  _No-one_  tells him what to do. Tumblr's anti-bullying T&Cs don't tell him what to do. Nobody does, except his mom and only then on the day before his allowance is issued. "No I don't," he says, and his voice is embarrassingly highly pitched from outrage. A very manly outrage he thinks, and then corrects. Manly is buying into preconceived notions of gender identity and presentation that he will have no truck with in this day and age.   
  
  
"Oh I think you do," and Combeferre is making his way out from behind the desk, apparently with  _intentions,_  and most of Enjolras's brain is confused, a little bit of it is writing a blog post about this, and an even larger bit is screaming triumph. Institutionalised abuse right here folks! Actual oppression. He has hit the fucking jackpot. "You just want to be turned on my knee and spanked. In fact you'd like to kneel down, and beg me for instruction, beg me to be  _allowed_  to write your essay, and be secretly hoping that I forbid it, so we have more time to fuck." He pauses, and grins in a decidedly lecherous way. "There's something in it for you as well," he says. "Be my perfect little sub and with my help and judicious application of my sway, influence and access to the marking records, you might actually graduate university with some decent grades."  
  
  
Now see the thing is, Enjolras is weirdly half interested in a way, or would've been if he'd actually cared about his grades, graduating university or passing exams, like ever. He'd probably have given a blow job if he'd been offered paid membership of lj at sixteen, and worked on a scaled system (first fuck for a tricked out website, got a rim job for some SEO work etc.) But he has thirteen thousand followers on tumblr now- a personal army of attack-poodles- there's not really anything he actually wants, so this isn't tempting in the least even if Combeferre is weirdly hot for someone who should be close to the grave.   
  
  
"No!" he says, and that high pitch is back, even though he thought he'd kicked its ass during puberty. He tells himself off again internally for the violence of that image, and drew upon his substantial memories of the time he'd anon kink-shamed ten people in one day to tell Combeferre exactly what he thinks. "You're a disgrace to the faculty," he says, and is proud of the little shake in his voice. "You're abusing your authority sir, attempting to blackmail me, and ignoring the fact that there is an extreme power differential between us. You're proposing a ridiculously unhealthy relationship between us, and I just can't ignore this. I'm young, impressionable and a student who is here to be moulded by your skilled hands. I came here to learn about the  _Bible_  you monster."

 

Combeferre hears him out, and smiles. "I'm glad that much has sunk in of my class," he says. "Stop pretending darling and bare that pretty neck for me, and let's do what we've both been waiting for."   
  
  
Enjolras dashes for the door, head full of plans, already flicking through his contacts, rallying people to his call. They're going to barricade this pervert!  _I mean differently-kinked person,_  he thinks automatically, unable to turn off his internal search, find and replace.   
  
  
Combeferre calls after him. "Enjolras you're twenty six! You've repeated this college year eight times, stop pretending it wasn't just to see me!"  
  
  
The real problem it turns out is that to dogpile someone in  _real_  life is a lot lot harder than tweeting the link to a picture of someone wearing a kilt with a caption about them appropriating indigenous Scottish culture. See of his thirteen thousand followers, only ten live in the same city. And while he has friends at the university who are happy enough to turn up to his specially run QUILTBAG meetings (because the LGBT society just isn't _radical_ enough) and talk about their demi-semi-grey-asexual-romantic feelings, it turns out they're mysteriously scarce when they're given a bona-fide reason to tell somebody their behaviour is inappropriate face-to-face. So in the end, it's him and two friends with placards, holing Combeferre up in his office which doesn't really seem to have the desired effect since Combeferre claims that he wasn't intending on leaving for hours anyway since he had marking to do.  
  
  
And then fucking fucking fucking Combeferre whips out his trump card. He's working from the inside, he's set up a tumblr called CombeferretheRighteous,  _and_  a twitter, and he's pumping out hundreds of tweets and blog posts tagged with things like #injustice, #oppression, #kinkshaming, #shaming, #rage, #ableism, #ykinmkato and he's getting  _reblogs._  His most recent one has thirty thousand notes, and Enjolras's tumblr is collapsing under the amount of asks, and this is not going as planned. When the closing time for the local organic market draws nigh, Enjolras's two friends shamefacedly slink away, leaving him with his back against the door, desperately trying to counteract his bad press online with tweets from his phone. #Revolution he tags, #protest, #pervert, #barricade and then finally he pulls out his desperate last-ditch attempt #bigot.   
  
  
At midnight the battle is lost, and Combeferre opens the door smugly. Enjolras has been cleaned around by the cleaners, and he just wants some coffee. "You win," he says, and Combeferre has the nerve to grin at him.  
  
  
"Three page essay on the influence of Tiberius's foreign policy decisions on the Roman Empire and indirectly and over the years on the formation of the New Testament structure," he says and swings his keys on his hand.   
  
  
Enjolras, broken, can only nod, though a small flicker of rebellion inside him whispers that he'll set the font to size fourteen.


End file.
